"...James Wigderson takes on local and state issues with intelligence and humor. Even those who disagree with Wigderson respect his thoughtfulness and grasp of political matters." Waukesha Freeman "Community members and columnists help make award-winning Opinion Page" February 5, 2009

...earlier this month, over 99 per cent of delegates to the Conservative Party convention voted to abolish Section 13 (the "hate speech" provision) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and a brave principled Liberal, Keith Martin, renewed his private member's motion in the House of Commons to do the same.

This morning, the CHRC issued the so-called Moon Report on free-speech issues. Most of us expected it to be a whitewash. Instead, Professor Moon says:

1. The first recommendation is that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed so that the CHRC and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) would no longer deal with hate speech, in particular hate speech on the Internet.

This is a great tribute to what Ezra calls his campaign of "denormalization" of Canada's Orwellian "human rights" racket. They're not yet ready to throw in the towel completely, but it's fluttering limply on the edge of the ring. Canada may be preparing to rejoin the ranks of free nations.

This guy sounds like a racist redneck, fine, bad man. Two things bother me: First is this notion that you can be charged with a hate crime without any underlying other crime having been committed. I can rationalize a hate crime enhancer which would increase the penalty for another crime, but that wasn’t the case here. Refuse him service, kick him out of the bar and have him arrested for disorderly conduct if he doesn’t go, but charging that words prove someone’s beliefs is, to me, charging someone with a “thought crime”. That seems more than a little Orwellian.